


Harry's Promise

by JosephineStone



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco Malfoy-centric, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Reunions, St Mungo's Hospital
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-07 05:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14664354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JosephineStone/pseuds/JosephineStone
Summary: Harry and Draco met again, after the war.





	Harry's Promise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LowerEastSide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LowerEastSide/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Circumpolar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12340344) by [LowerEastSide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LowerEastSide/pseuds/LowerEastSide). 



> LowerEastSide, I loved your line about meeting each other “on the other side of the war”, and it made me really want to see that meeting between them happen. Thank you, D, for editing this for me.

Draco lay in St Mungo’s on the other side of the war. The next part had never been planned out. His mother came by often, but she always said to just "wait and we’ll see". He became an adult while hiding from the world, and he felt more like a child than he ever had before. 

Harry wrote but did as Draco had said and never came by. Draco played out scenarios of what it would be like if Harry had come to see him to fill out the long hours of his days. When you're sat up in a hospital for a year, then you don't have much else to do but imagine a life: either yours or someone else's. 

Although, Draco was not the type to go stir crazy.  Books, quills, and parchment were all he needed to be kept entertained for hours.

Still he imagined Harry; a lot.

He became the characters in his books; the faces he drew on his parchment.

Merlin, what had one night of kissing done to him?

It could have been the isolation, or the timing of everything. He didn’t want to let go of the feeling he had just before he came to hospital. With months of separation it would have been easy for Draco, even in his isolation, to forget about Harry. But he didn’t want to. He wanted to be excited to see him again; he was enjoying the anticipation. 

And Draco was free to indulge in the fantasies of anyone he wanted—like the cute Healer that had lied for him constantly and kept him safe for the last year. He never felt the same as Harry though. Married with four children. Draco left _that_  in the fantasy world. 

For the last year, Draco went back and forth with his positive and negative thoughts about Harry’s “on the other side” of the war. He dreamed about Harry coming to release him from the hospital, and he dreamed about Harry never coming to find him ever. About finding out Harry was back with Ron’s little sister and married with children in the same way that Draco found out about how the war was then over: _The Daily Prophet_. 

Harry’s letters were short and to the point.

_ Draco, _

_We’re not going back to Hogwarts. Too much to do and it isn’t safe. Hope you’re well._

_Harry_

In his own letters, he had to fight himself from writing paragraphs about his mundane life. Or about the endless thoughts that ran through his head. He dropped subtle hints in one that there might be someone else by mentioning his Healer three times, but then trashed the letter. It was something Pansy would do, and Draco would eventually talk her out of it. Harry wouldn’t have noticed, and it wasn’t true anyway.

In the end, it was his mother.

‘Draco?’ her voice soft and soothing as though she knew he’d be expecting someone else and didn’t want to disappoint him with her presence. ‘It’s time to go.’

The sudden noise in his quiet ward still made him jump.

Since the war had ended, his usual quiet space and become much more so. He’d expected the opposite, more patients filling up the rooms around his, but instead staff from his area were busy with wherever the influx of patients were. There was only one Medi-witch with him and she checked on him rarely. Once Draco was ready and walking down the hall with his mother, he saw she was packing up to leave as well.

It wasn’t until then that Draco wondered if the area they were at didn’t really exist. 

Magic did that all the time. Here have a room that’s not really there except when you need it. There’s a whole ward at St Mungo’s like that and he’d been watching it in action for a year without thought.

Sure enough as they left the ward, the doors behind them disappeared. He was officially there, but no one would ever see him. Lord, his family was paranoid. Or Snape. Snape was certainly the more plot-fearing member of his family. He thought things through better than Draco’s father; he worried more than Draco’s mother. 

‘Are we going to the manor?’ Draco asked just to make conversation. 

‘Not quite yet,’ she said, and after a pause, ‘I’m not sure when, if ever.’

‘Was it destroyed?’

‘Your father doesn’t like the _feel_  of it anymore.’

Draco was surprised to hear his father was alive, even though no one had ever said the opposite. He’d been mentally preparing for it. They could save him and his mother, but not his father. His next breath hurt from the relief of knowing what his father wanted mattered at all.

‘I’ve been living with my sister.’

‘Father?’

‘Severus has him somewhere, but…’

‘He’s dead,’ Draco finished for her. More news from the _Prophet_. Severus had died moments before the Dark Lord did.

‘You can go wherever you like.’

They were walking through London and no one seemed to notice them. It was just any other day to the Muggles. A sticky, hot June afternoon. They were overdressed for it, but Draco’s family were always overdressed for Muggle London.

‘But,’ she continued, ‘I don’t think you should spend any more time alone. It’s not healthy.’

‘It was only a year.’

‘I’m afraid of you making it more.’

Draco nodded. ‘I’d like to at least see the manor.’

She nodded as if she were afraid that would be his answer. It was still his home. And from the sound of it, he’d be there alone.

She took him there, though he could have made it home himself. His parents taught him how at seven after he got away from them shopping one day. They figured it was more dangerous for him not to know than to know how to get through the boundaries. They trusted him to never purposely run away from them.

They looked around the grounds and then through the house. It looked mostly the same, except no one had taken care of the gardens. The house was dusty and Draco wondered about the servants, but didn’t ask.

Before she left him there, alone again, she asked, ‘You know how to get to my sister’s?’

‘I’ll be there Sunday.’ Every Sunday. No matter where he lived. It was a rule his father had once Draco was old enough to visit his friends’ homes without asking anymore. Go wherever, but be home on Sunday.

Once she left, the first thing he did was write Harry a letter.

#

He should have been thinking about it for the last year, but he didn’t.

He should have made his to-do lists the night before like he always had at Hogwarts, but he hadn’t. 

The isolation had made him lose track of himself in many ways he hadn't noticed until then. Now, he had to figure himself out again.

In the morning, he pushed opened the windows to let air in his room. It was cool still from the night before since the sun was just barely rising. He sat at his desk and planned out his day before he'd even thought about food. The money he kept just in case in his top desk drawer was still there. He didn’t know what his family’s financial situation was, but it was enough to get by for a while.

He figured out his to-do list for the week with all the new things he had to think about. Then he started in on cleaning. Even as a wizard, cleaning the entire manor by himself would be impossible. He stuck to the areas he’d use the most. Then he popped out to eat. He wasn’t up to cooking. 

Although London had the most options, Draco stuck to the smaller village near his house. 

It was the opposite of what he’d have done a few years ago, and though he’d keep it to himself, he knew it meant his mother was right. It’d be very easy for himself to fall into a self-imposed isolation. 

He should seek out his friends. If he wanted to see Harry, he should go to him. 

But a stubborn, selfish part of him wanted them to think of him; to come to him when they wanted to see him. Just so that he knew that they did want to see him. Just like a stubborn part of him wanted Harry to come save him for once. Even if Draco never really needed saving in the first place. Like gifts from grandparents that are never really what the child wanted, it was the thought that counted.

He took the long way out to the village, walking most of it. It was nice to be in fresh air again. The hospital had spells but often reality was better than magic. 

Pansy would probably be first if Crabbe and Goyle weren’t. Blaise and Daphne would write if they didn’t stop by eventually. But nothing guaranteed they were ready that week, and Draco wasn’t sure where he’d be next week.

All in all, without a discussion or plan, Draco wasn’t expecting it to be Harry.

When he saw a figure shifting around his front door, he thought it was a lost wanderer. A neighbour, maybe, who saw him around the property last night or that morning. Even though all this neighbours were so far off they really shouldn’t have noticed him. He didn’t remember lighting up any rooms the night before.

Still, once Draco got closer, and the figure turned to face him, it was so obviously, ‘Harry?’

‘Hi.’ Harry gave a little wave.

‘What are you doing here?’

Harry shrugged. ‘You weren’t at St Mungo’s, so I figured you came home.’

‘I didn’t expect you. I thought you’d be busy.’

‘Not too busy.’

They were silent, just looking at each other with a new nervousness that wasn’t present the last time. Draco waiting for Harry to make his next impulsive decision. He could step forward first. Kiss Harry like how Harry had promised him when they were in the Astronomy Tower, but it was Harry’s promise to keep.

‘I won’t be here but for a week,’ Draco said. ‘My mom’s living with her sister, and I think she wants me to go there. I don’t know where I’ll go yet. I need a plan.’

‘You could stay with me.’

‘At the Weasley’s?’

Laughing, Harry shook his head. ‘I’m staying in London at my godfather’s old house. He left it to me. I kind of want to be in the city. I don’t want to get stuck out in the middle of nowhere with just a few people that I know around me. They want me to and I get why, but there’s such a thing as too much peace and quiet.’

Draco nodded.

‘Plus, I’ll be starting Auror training here soon. It’s close.’

Draco hadn’t thought much about a career for the last couple of years. Who knew what options he’d have once he left Hogwarts with a war on?

Harry inched closer in their silence.

Just before Harry got to him, Draco spoke again. ‘I have so much to figure out.’

‘I’d have thought you’d have done that in St Mungo’s this last year.’

‘Yet, I didn’t. I slept.’ And he worried. ‘It’s hard to plan when you don’t know what the other side looks like.’

‘Right.’ Then Harry kissed him before he could interrupt him again.

There was a worry in the back of Draco’s mind that kissing after the war wouldn’t be the same as it had that night. That it was the night and not them that created their moment together. But this kiss erased those thoughts. It was more than the ones that came before it. The fear turned into not wanting to open his eyes. To see what it meant for Harry. 

Sometimes magic was better than reality.

He didn’t open his eyes.

Harry kissed him, again.

Once Draco was sure that the reality was better, he opened his eyes again.

‘Are you okay?’ Harry asked. ‘You’ve never been so quiet before.’

‘I suppose I got used to the quiet.’ Draco kissed Harry. ‘We can make plans later. Are you busy this week?’

‘Just with you.’

**Author's Note:**

> [Fic headers](http://hd-remix.tumblr.com/post/174467306114/drarry-fic-harrys-promise) and a [pull quote](http://hd-remix.tumblr.com/post/174472713235/he-should-seek-out-his-friends-if-he-wanted-to) have been posted to tumblr. Help promote the fest by liking and reblogging!


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